Dell Servers - Will Not Boot

[Callum99]

Hello,

 

We've had some strange experiences with our Dell Servers.

 

2 weeks ago, our main Hypervisor (Dell EMC PowerEdge R640) unexpectedly shutdown during the middle of the day. There was nothing useful in the event log, and the server booted back up fine when turned back on manually after removing the power cables and plugging them back in.

 

A few days later, the same thing happened again - however this time the server would not boot at all. PSU lights were on but nothing else. This ended up being a call to Dell and they came out under warranty as they said their was a problem with the motherboard.

 

Today - one of our older servers had the same thing happen. This machine is a Dell PowerEdge R710 (2010). Obviously this machine is out of any warranty.

 

Each server has 2 PSU's, One going to the main power supply, and one into the UPS.

 

Has anyone got any ideas as to 1, how we can get the R710 back online and 2, what on earth the root cause of this could be?

 

I just can't believe that it is a coincidence!?

[MatthewL]

Can you pull any logs from the UPS at the time, see if there was a spike or anything like that? Very odd one and hard to pin point but start looking at any logs and see if you notice anything similar in the two times.

[Olliedawg]

Are both servers plugged into the same UPS? How old is the UPS? As above, are you able to check logs on the UPS?

[ToyHeartsFan]

If there was a surge it would have bypassed the UPS so if you want the servers connected to two different supplies then you need 2 UPS units.

 

It's not impossible the UPS is faulty and fried the servers but I'd put my money on it being the unfiltered connections.

 

As regards your 14 year old server that you can't get parts for its scrap and you shouldn't have been using it for anything critical due to its age, something like hosting WSUS or WDS though would have been okay at a pinch because its easy to replace and doesn't impact the end users if it dies.

 

1.

Buy a new server move the roles from your working server to the new one then use the older one to host the roles of the dead one.

 

2.

Buy a refurb (but not as old) server to replace the dead one.

 

3.

Search ebay etc for a 14 year old untested server motherboard, psus, RAM etc and swap them out until you can boot it again...

 

4.

Do away with the dead server and move the roles to the cloud.

[PotNoodleTech]

So if one of the two power supplies in each server is plugged straight into the wall then the server is not protected from blackouts brownouts undervoltage and overvoltage/spikes lightning strikes or anything else nasty from the mains.

 

It could simply be lack of power conditioning and you have been unlucky?

[Fazza]

You need to fault find your PowerEdge R710, there's litterally a million and one things it could be and impossible to diagnose on a forum.

 

Personally I would start by removing the power cables, hold down the power button on the server to drain any residual power in the power supplies and then remove the power supplies from the server. Put one of the power supplies back in to the server and plug it in and see what happens. Take the lid off of the server and see if there are any LEDS illuminated on the motherboard.

 

It could be absolutely anything from the RAM, CPU(s), storage devices, PSU, Motherboard, any installed expansion cards - the list goes on...